from Α/Z [exc.]
The stag deer
looks at his fawns with pride
under the oleander.
He moves his head;
the antlers
shake the boughs –
pink petals trickle down.
The chestnut tree died
at seventy-five.
How many summers more
will the pomegranate’s shadow last
wedged in the rock?
How many carefree summers,
left for us?
you ask me on the phone
next to the sea.
Through summer and winter,
for ages,
boys had been wearing
shorts:
in the north, in the south.
The boy’s waist as he grows
does not change much:
only the legs get longer.
Shorts
remain short,
though shorter every year.
And when they’re baggy,
they last longer:
as the waist grows wider,
and the thighs grow strong.
Plus, during games,
long trousers will get stained,
and torn.
Better
a wounded knee
than patches
– mothers have thought,
over the globe,
for ages.
You save on fabric,
and boys learn
to hurt
and to take care.
And to not be ashamed
to show their wounds.
Like
small
slabs
protruding
from a wall horizontally
in houses built of stone:
they seem placed randomly,
but they are steps
that lead.
[translated by Panayotis Ioannidis]
~ Appeared in "Reading Greece", April 2024
